MY MISSION IS TURNING INTO STRAIGHT UP HIDE AND SEEK

I always try to send positive emails to Taylor to let him know I am proud of him and what he is doing, but not having served a mission I don't feel like I know what to say to him when things are so hard. If any of you that have served missions can give him some advice to pump him up I would sure appreciate it! It would be so awesome if he could get a ton of dearelder.com letters for Christmas!!!!


hola mi vieja

well another week down. not much to report here. president detlefsen  sent out a letter saying that we are now going to be in each area for quite a while. apparently for at least six months, up to 9 months. thats what he said anyway. enrique, still havent found him, joaquin and olessia we have basically dropped. we need new investigators. i have never been good with finding new investigators. i dont know what it is with me. i just need to keep changing myself to try and find out where Gods children are hiding that want to hear the gospel! my mission is turning into straight up hide and seek. hopefully this week turns something up. we got a reference from the zone leaders and they seem pretty solid. pablo and deborah se llaman. i am hoping we can get them taught this week. i called them on saturday and they said they were out of town but would call us when they got back. he is the nicest person ever from what he sounded like on the phone! i have a really good feeling about them. but well wait and see. we are still working with the guaymas family. not much happening there. o yesterday, we ate with the bishop. the day before was his sons birthday and they had a whole lamb cooked! so we ate the leftovers. it was so delicious! then they broght out this wierd looking piece of meat with ribs and i tried it and turns out it was peludo, o sea armadillo! i ate armadillo. and ya know what, i really liked it. so i came to the conclusion that i want to get into hunting when i come home. a lot of people hunt here in la pampa and i want to try it out. be a good way to get food. i almost forgot. i am going to send my sd card your way in the mail. it apparently fried. i dont want to try and fix it here in argentina. then again, i dont know if its fixable. but its my sd card with ALL my pics of the mission. i dont know how its fried but i have hope that it can be fixed! so please be a miracle worker! i am gonna lose pics from the first half of the mission if its done, :,( but yes. that all i have for you mom. yeah... i love you mom!

elder jones 

WHEN THEY READ AND PRAY THEY GET CLOSER TO BAPTISM

hey mom

everything is fine. not much to report. another week here in toay. we werent able to find "e", which was a bummer. "j" and "o" is a toughie. last night we taught them the importance of prayer and at the end had joaquin pray. we also got them to understand why they need to read and pray. gave them the vision concerning what happens when the read and pray, that being, they get closer to baptism. still dont have a fecha though. we really are just in the search for new people. its been like that every where i go and i am starting to realize that every where i go as well. i still got to keep honing my skills on the search process. mom, i dont have much time but know i love you! 

elder joens

YOU CAN'T BUILD A TOWER WITHOUT THE SCREWS.

hey mom.

yeah, since i hit the year mark, i feel old and my whole body hurts. its not fun! i want to go back to having a good ole 11 months and 29 days in the mission! i felt great then! the new apartment is fine. we have to buy a lot of stuff for it though. so yeah, for now we dont have a shower cutain, curtains for the windows, forks, plates, cups, shelves. so its an interesting exp thus far jaja for my comp. elder l. is doing great. he speaks good and is getting better every day. for the training with new missionaries now, we dont leave in the mornings. its kinda lame but we study all morning. o well. we didnt find our investigator last week. he was gone. so i dont know if he will get baptized now. so yeah, i am not sure what we will do with him. we found a couple who is married this last week though. she is from russia. shes been here 14 years. but we taught them the book of mormon and its importance and we need to go back and verify to see if they prayed or not. i think there is some potential there. but yeah, i have been learning a lot each week. its amazing how much one grows spiritually in the mission. i absolutely love it! i cant believe its almost over. time to put it in overdrive though and start working even harder! i want to get out and find newbies! the hardest part for me though is open my mouth and talk with EVERYONE. there are a lot of people here who just work outside and me personally i dont like interrupting them while they work. that is something i am working on though. so yeah, i really just and trying to work on the little things. i came up with the analogy thingy last week. you cant build a tower without the screws. so i am trying to look for the screws to build my tower o sea, i am trying to do the little things so i can see the miracle. god is a god of miracles, not magic. we have to work for our miracles. well mom, i love you! chau!

elder jones

THEY SAY THE FIRST YEAR GOES BY SLOW. I DOUBT THAT.

TODAY WAS A GREAT DAY! I woke up to a letter from Taylor's mission president!! It was only a copy of a letter he had given to Taylor last week as a new trainer, but nonetheless it made my day!! I love my boy!!


hey mom!

i really cant believe i am at the year mark! its crazy. they say the first year goes by slow. i doubt that. it went by super fast. i dont know what they all talk about. but yeah, so my kid is here! his name is elder liljenquist. you dont say the j in his name. he is from florida. he talks rather well for a newbie and still doesnt understand about anyone but he is way cool. i forgot to bring my camera to send you a picture but yeah. i may do it next week. so i had to go to bahia on tuesday and we were there all day then came back late wednesday night. so we lost a whole day of work. but not much happened. we found a less active family and the parents arent members. so we are trying to get them to come to church and also get the parents married and then baptize them. the mom is waiting on some divorce papers but o well. not much to do but teach them and animate them to go to church. and yesterday a random dude showed up to church with some family members and turns out he is not a member. his name is richard. he is about 25 and doenst know how to read. but we taught him the restoration in church and are going to go back on wednesday to see how his prayers went. i think we could baptize him next week! i really want to see him get baptized. he is pretty cool and yeah. so we really just need to keep looking for new investigators and all. and i am trying to not talk in english to my comp. he wants to learn as fast as he can. so we are giving up on english for a little bit! well mom i love you and thanks for everything! until next monday when i have a year in the mission! jaja chau!

love elder jones

I AM STILL HAPPY AS CAN BE! IT'S THE LORD'S WORK AFTER ALL!

hi mom.

you have more stuff to send me? wow, that is a lot! i dont know if i will have stuff in my suitcases. well, i did get the package from the young women. send them my love! i loved everything in there. even down to the hawaiin punch. those are amazing! so last week not much happened. new problems surfaced with the contract. it was made in my name and here to set up the gas and electricity, you have to take the company the contract. so i was backed up on the contract for the rent and all, so if someone didnt pay the rent i wouldnt be put on trial, but if the missionaries didnt pay the gas or light, i would have been the one to roast for it. so i have to take the contract to bahía blanca wednesday. o i didnt tell you. elder gonzalez left this weekend for mar del plata. it was transfers. i dont know who my comp is yet. i am with an elder soto right now from chile. he is here with me until we go down to bahía blanca to pick up our NEW MISSIONARIES! i am going to train! woohooo! i am so excited! i cant wait to have a new missionary under my wings! its gonna be awesome. i dont know how i will do but i want to try my best. i know i will get someone who is perfect for me to teach and at the same time i can learn a lot from him. i am going to miss elder gonzalez though. it was an awesome transfer with him even though we didnt baptize. i learned a lot about myself and about the mission. i really just need to be more straight forward as a missionary. i was/still am a timid missionary and dont like dropping the cane on the people here. but i am a missionary and need to call the people to repentence. its my calling. also, i have been thinking lately a lot about what i am going to do after the mission. i have no idea what job i want, what i want to do with school and all that. but i know i should not worry until the time comes. i also am learning that i need to just stop ignoring my problems but just take them head on when the arise. its a lot easier in the long run that way. familia guaymás is still not progressing. we are trying hard with them and all but its just not going well, i promised elder gonzalez i wouldnt give up on them. well mom, i love you! take care! 

elder joens

ps, i am still happy as can be! its the Lords work after all!

PRACTICE DOESN'T MAKE PERFECT, THE ATONEMENT DOES!

dearest mother

i dont even want to think about time flying by as it is right now. i cant be at the year mark already! its too fast. i wish i had another two years! your making me trunky jaja. the weather has been wierd apparently. it rained thursday through sunday. and it rained hard. cool story though! so thursday night, around six, it starts raining real hard. i have my jacket and elder gonzalez has a jacket but not made for rain at all. so we went to the church to go to the bathroom and see what we should do. so while he is in the bathroom i get down on my knees and start praying. we had no real options other than go home, keep working in the rain and get soaked and ruin our clothes or improvise something. so what do i do? i plead with the Lord to let us find someone and just get into a house. so elder gonzalez ends up making a jacket out of trashbags. so we go out, knock doors for about thirty mins. people say no, dont answer doors, tell us to come back later and such. so we are at the point of going home and decide to knock one last house. we knock. an older woman answers and lets us in! her name was margarita and we talked with her a little and shared a quick message. she said she wasnt going to change at all and so we probably never will go back but my prayer was answered! i was so thankful and am thankful for the opportunity to have the power of prayer available to us. other than that, nothing really happened this week. we are going to move to toay probably tomorrow or wednesday. we just have to sign a contract witht the owner and she is out on vacations. elder gonzalez is a very hard worker. he is going to be a great missionary later on in his mission. anything funny this week? there were many funny things this week. but mainly, today we had to break a door at our house we live at now because the key to it broke off inside and we needed to get in and see what stuff we have for our house in toay. it took us about thirty mins to get in. i may send a video of that next monday. i just finished jacob and the book of enos today. i am loving the book of mornon. as soon as i finish it, i am going to start it in spanish. then i will read the dandc in spanish and then the pearl of great price in spanish. i want to get better at my spanish. presidetn detlefsen said we all talk way to much ingles in this mission. so i am going to get better at that. really, i am working on the basic things right now to try and make my being a missionary that much better. like they say, practice doestn make perfect, the atonement does! jaja well i love you mom. take care! good luck with the job search!

love elder jones 

SOMETHING I AM REALLY GRASPING IS THAT WE HAVE TO DO SO LITTLE BUT YET SO MUCH TO REACH EXALTATION!

sup homies jaja. hi mom!

 

so conference was the best part by far. i absolutuely loved it. i learned so much but dont even know where to begin. but yeah, nothing special really happened this week. we had a total of five lessons taught, some of them being with less active members. this area is turning out to be tough. a lot of door knocking. but o well. the gu. family is struggling. they really arent progressing anymore. i dont really want to pass by them anymore but hey, i cant really do anything about it now can i? they need us.sorry i dont have much to write. i havent had any big experiences this week. conference was pretty awesome though. i learned so much about myself and my patriarchal blessing. something i am reallly grasping is that we have to do so little but yet so much to reach exaltation. i feel like an idiot for my past. i have no desire to be like who i was before. i dont know what i was thinking back then. man, hindsight is great isnt it? well mom. i love you so much! thanks for everything.

 

love elder jones